


Don't wanna touch you, but you're under my skin.

by SeraBee



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25135894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeraBee/pseuds/SeraBee
Summary: What if Vanessa didn't kiss Charity back in the cellar?Just a little reimagining of how the events of October 12th 2017 could have played out differently.
Relationships: Charity Dingle/Vanessa Woodfield
Comments: 32
Kudos: 216





	1. Chapter 1

Vanessa had never been a fighter. Though she could hold her own verbally in an argument, her physical skills were usually limited to hair pulling, screeching and throwing pints in peoples faces. So it was safe to say that she had been just as stunned as Charity when her fist had made contact with Charity’s cheek.

She rubs at her knuckles as Charity staggers backwards, her hands covering her mouth and face. Charity’s face was deceptively hard and as Vanessa flexes her fingers, she finds herself thankful for the anaesthetising effects of alcohol.

She risks a glance at Charity who is tentatively removing her hand from her mouth to find her palm streaked with fresh blood. Vanessa has managed to burst her lip. Charity’s fingers flutter around the point of impact, pressing and pushing to check if anything else is broken or bleeding. Content that it looks worse than it actually is, she wipes the sleeve of her blazer across her mouth and turns her attention to Vanessa.

Vanessa tries to swallow the fear that rises in her throat as she takes a few steps back. The punch had been a reflex so she really hadn’t taken the time to consider the consequences of such a bold move. As Charity advances towards her, she finds herself scrunching her eyes up tight and bracing for impact. When nothing happens, she opens one eye warily and finds Charity smirking at her cowardice.

“Don’t start what you can’t finish, Vanessa,” Charity scoffs, and the arrogance in her tone sets Vanessa’s teeth on edge all over again. Because she hadn’t bloody well started it at all.

“Erm, you were the one who tried to kiss me,” she snaps, still unsure how an argument with Charity had ended up with Charity practically sitting on her lap and kissing her. A hollow laugh bursts forth from Charity then.

“There are ways of saying you’re not interested that don’t involve launching your fist at someone’s face you know,”

Vanessa feels her face flush with heat, because Charity is right. She’d had more than a few unwelcome advances in her time and she’d managed to swerve all of them without resorting to fisticuffs. Truth be told, Charity’s kiss had frightened her – not because it was unwelcome, but because her body had reacted in a way that it never had before, with anyone else.

Feelings that she hadn’t felt since Rhona – that she’d brushed away as ‘confusion’ – had bubbled back up to the surface when Charity’s lips had brushed against hers. It had sent her head spinning. Not that she was ready to admit that to Charity, or even really to herself. Instead, she let herself feel the anger.

“And there are ways of checking in with someone first too, it’s called consent Charity.”

Something bristled beneath the surface of Charity’s expression then, as though Vanessa had hit a nerve.

“Fine,” she huffed, “I was just messing with you anyway. But I’m sleeping on the chair.”

Vanessa was too drunk and too angry to argue with the other woman. Deciding that she should probably just be thankful that Charity hadn’t lamped her one back, Vanessa grabs her bag and heads round the corner to sit by the door. When someone opens it in the morning, she wants to be the first one out.

\--------------------------------------

Vanessa wakes up feeling like roadkill. Her mouth is so dry that her lips have stuck together and she pulls a little bit of skin off as she prises them open. Attempting to lift her head up from her knees, she winces as her neck spasms and a wave of nausea rolls over her mercilessly.

Clutching the dead weight of her head, she opens her eyes slowly and groans as she realises where she is. The Woolpack cellar. To be specific, on the floor of the Woolpack cellar where she had fallen asleep leaning against the door, hugging her knees for warmth.

The alcohol-induced brain fog clears slowly, but eventually the memories of the night before begin to filter through and in the cold light of morning (at least she thinks its morning), they are no less mortifying.

She uses the wall to pull herself up on to her feet and has to close her eyes for a moment as the cellar begins to swim around her. Once her body seems to have found it’s equilibrium, she eases her eyes open slowly, relieved when the room around her appears to be still. Careful not to make a sound, she peeps around the corner towards the back of the cellar where Charity is still fast asleep, curled up on the armchair and snoring softly beneath a piece of tarp.

The dried blood around her mouth confirms that Vanessa had not dreamt the entire thing. Charity had kissed her and she’d punched Charity in the face. Remembering the lengths that Charity had gone to just to get revenge on her dad, Vanessa feels a knot of dread twist around her stomach. She didn’t know anyone that had pissed Charity off and walked away unscathed. The woman had done a year in prison because of a revenge plot against her ex-husband after all.

With a sudden, desperate urge to be out of the cellar and as far away from Charity as possible, Vanessa forgets about the broken lock and attempts to open the cellar door. She immediately remembers her predicament when the door doesn’t budge and groans at her own stupidity.

A high pitched scream on the other side of the door makes her jump.

“Marlon! Marlon! There’s someone in the cellar!” Victoria screams. Vanessa flinches as the sound of the scream seems to reverberate off the inside of her skull causing a sharp pain in her temples.

“Don’t be daft,” comes the bellowing sound of Marlon. His voice gets louder as he gets closer to the door. “We’re the only ones here,” he insists as he opens the door. His jaw drops when he sees Vanessa standing there.

“Sorry, I got locked in last night. Thanks…” She doesn’t wait for Charity to hear the voices and come stumbling out behind her. She certainly doesn’t wait to answer the dozen or so questions that Marlon and Vic will definitely have. She squeezes between them both, making her way through the pub and out of the front door as quickly as she can.

************************

Main Street is thankfully quiet when Vanessa emerges from the Woolpack and stumbles back up the road towards Tug Ghyll. She half expects the mission impossible theme tune to start blaring out as she tries to look as inconspicuous as it is possible to look when you’re wearing last nights clothes and a bright yellow cape. The only person she sees is Paddy, heading over towards the pub just as she slips the key into her front door and disappears inside.

With her back pressed against the door, she closes her eyes and spends a few moments dragging some much needed air into her lungs. Once the pounding of her heart quietens, she listens for any signs of life inside. Everything is utterly silent. Pulling her phone out of her bag, she curses under her breath when she realises the time. She has about ten minutes to make herself look presentable, pick up the worming tablets from the surgery and get to Mr Thompson’s.

By the time she gets to work, she’s out of breath and although she’s dragged a comb through her hair, deodorised and tried to brush the taste of death out of her mouth, she knows she’s looking just as crap as she feels. Whatever animated conversation Paddy and Rhona are having when she walks in, it soon grinds to a halt when they catch sight of her.

“Jesus,” Rhona gasps, her eyes taking in the pallid complexion of her friend. “You look awful!”

Paddy smirks knowingly. “So would you, if you’d spent all night locked in a cellar with Charity,” he laughs before shooting what Vanessa assumes is a sympathetic smile her way.

Vanessa glares at him in such a way that his smile quickly withers away. “How do you know about that?” she asks.

“I needed to get a spare key from Marlon, they filled me in…” he mumbles, “Apparently, Charity followed you out and had a face like a wet weekend, said you’d punched her?”

“You did what!?” Rhona screeched.

Vanessa huffs and storms past both of them towards the surgery. She needs to get the worming tablets from the drugs cabinet and spending the morning sticking her hands up cows backsides is suddenly far more appealing that staying here and explaining things to her friends.

“Aren’t you going to ask how Johnny was last night?” Rhona asks, following her into the surgery and hovering as she grabs the medication and signs it out. She doesn’t wait for Vanessa to answer. “He was fine by the way. Had a jam fight with Leo this morning and still managed to look better than you.” Vanessa forces out a dry and unenthusiastic laugh as she stuffs the medication into her bag and moves to leave. Rhona stands in her way.

“What?” she huffs, exasperated with her friend.

“Why did you punch Charity?”

“She wound me up, okay. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Paddy appears then, passing one of the two brews he’s made to Rhona.

“You don’t mess with the Ness,” he laughs, before the jolly grin on his face is replaced by a more serious expression. “But you probably shouldn’t mess with Charity either to be fair.” Rhona nods in agreement and Vanessa’s stomach turns anxiously.

“I was drunk okay and she deserved it.” She knows she’s pouting. Sulking like Johnny whenever she has to tell him off for something that he knows he shouldn’t have done. Because she knows she shouldn’t have hit Charity. It wasn’t like the kiss had been threatening in any way – if anything it had been oddly gentle. What’s more, Charity had given her ample time to stop it from happening but the shock of the kiss and the overwhelming urge to kiss Charity back had left Vanessa paralysed by her own ridiculous confusion.

With a growl of frustration, mostly directed at her own stupidity, Vanessa pushes past her friends and out of the surgery.

******************

In a vain attempt to ease the ache in her back caused by sleeping in a cramped armchair in a draughty cellar at the not so young age of 41, Charity decides to have a hot shower.

With her forehead pressed against the cold tiles, she winces as the scalding water cascades down her back, but she doesn’t adjust the temperature. The scalding is a welcome distraction from the pains she feels elsewhere – her back, her jaw, her pride. Because she really hadn’t expected Vanessa Woodfield to punch her. Pull away perhaps, yell at her maybe, but not bloody punch her. It had hurt too. Even now, her jaw throbbed whenever she tried to open her mouth.

She’s not even entirely sure why she’d tried to kiss Vanessa anyway. Perhaps for the challenge. It had been far too easy to push her buttons and wind her up, so kissing her had seemed like a more interesting way to play things. It was how she’d ended up getting involved with Zoe all those years ago – a way of regaining control and power over a woman who was hell bent on character assassinating her. Vanessa hadn’t been as much of a threat, true, but she had certainly served up a few home truths for Charity and kissing her had seemed like a good way of getting to her to lay off. In the end it had worked, though not in the way that Charity had expected it to.

She uses concealer to hide the bruise that is blooming around her mouth before dressing and heading downstairs to start her early shift. Marlon and Vic give her a wide berth but she scowls at them a few times anyway, just to make sure they stay quiet. She hadn’t gone into detail about why Vanessa had punched her. One of the perks of being Charity Dingle is that you don’t often have to explain how you’ve managed to piss someone off. She doesn’t think Vanessa will be in a rush to tell people what had really happened either. If her reaction had told Charity anything, it was that Vanessa’s closet was deep and she had no desire to come out of it.

The morning drags a little and Charity keeps herself from drifting off by completing the crossword in the paper that a regular had left behind. She’s almost relieved when things get busier at lunch time, the usual locals drifting in for an hour or so before they head back to work. When Paddy and Rhona walk in, she’s relieved to see that Vanessa isn’t joining them.

“Not bought Kung Fu Betty with you then?” she scowls when she catches Paddy staring at her slightly swollen bottom lip. Rhona snorts as she tries to cover up her laugh. Charity glares at her and Rhona quickly straightens her face.

“Well, I don’t know what you said to her, but she’s been in a right mood all morning and refused to come in for her lunch.”

Charity smirks. “Yeah, well, tell her she’s barred anyway. Just in case she gets any ideas about coming in tomorrow.”

Rhona and Paddy seem shocked but think better of pushing the issue and head over to a booth with their pints as soon as Charity hands them over.

Returning to her crossword, Charity tries to focus but finds her mind wandering instead. Vanessa’s reaction to the whole situation – avoiding the pub, not telling people what had happened – it was all very curious and Charity had to admit she was intrigued. There had been a brief moment, just before Vanessa had pulled away and punched her, when Charity had been sure she’d felt Vanessa respond. For a split second, she was sure that Vanessa had wanted to kiss her back.

Charity hadn’t been lying when she’d told the vet that she liked a challenge, and that was exactly what Vanessa had become.

She grins to herself, as the beginnings of a plan start to formulate in her mind.

“Challenge accepted Woodfield,” she mumbles to herself with a smug grin.

****************

Tracy is sat behind the counter nursing a strong coffee when Vanessa walks in. She looks almost as bad as Vanessa feels. Worming a dozen or so cows had not done much to improve the state of her hangover and she was in desperate need of something stodgy to soak up what was left of the alcohol in her system. Choosing the first sandwich that looks marginally edible and appealing, Vanessa heads over to the counter. Tracy’s face lights up immediately at the sight of her.

“Hey lady, where did you end up last night? Leyla says you weren’t home when she got in. Did you pull? You didn’t go off with Daz did you?”

Vanessa almost gags at the thought of going home with Daz. Last night’s beer goggles had done a good job of convincing her that he was at least good looking enough to sleep with, but now she was stone cold sober, she couldn’t think of anything less appealing.

“Actually I got locked in the Woolpack cellar all bloody night. I can’t believe that not one of you thought to come and look for me.” She scowls at her sister whose initial frown of confusion soon turns into a smirk.

“You got locked in the cellar? How the hell did you manage that?” she laughs.

“I followed Charity in there didn’t I because she was winding up Dad and Megan and I wanted to tell her to back off. I didn’t know the lock was busted on the cellar door though.” She pushes the sandwich towards Tracy who scans it and holds out her hand for the money, all the while gawping in disbelief at Vanessa’s revelation.

“Wait… so you and Charity were locked in there all night? Together? What happened?”

Vanessa sighs, handing over the correct change. While she certainly didn’t want the whole village finding out about what had happened in the cellar, she thinks she can trust Tracy to keep her secret. Besides, she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it all day, and perhaps talking about it would help her put things into perspective.

“We argued. Then we drank. Then we argued some more. Then she started acting weird and then she tried to kiss me…” Vanessa cringes as she utters those final words and scrunches her eyes closed so she doesn’t have to see the look on Tracy’s face. She hears her gasp though.

“Erm, what?!” Tracy exclaims, her voice so high pitched that Vanessa is sure every dog in the village is about to burst through the door. Vanessa opens one eye, and then the other.

“Yeah. Exactly! Anyway, I may have accidentally punched her in the face.” Tracy’s eyes widen even more. Vanessa can practically see the steam coming out of her ears as she tries to process what her sister is telling her. The part about Vanessa punching Charity doesn’t seem to register though.

“Why would she do that? Kiss you, I mean?” Tracy hisses in an exaggerated whisper, even though there’s nobody else in the shop.

Vanessa shrugs. “I’m not sure. Maybe she’s just playing mind games. Like she did with dad. Trying to get some leverage.” Tracy nods in agreement. It certainly fits Charity’s usual MO.

“Was she a good snog?” Tracy asks, and Vanessa blushes. She’s not quite sure she’s ready to try and explain just how confused she was by Charity’s kiss.

“How would I know?” she snaps. “I punched her. I didn’t kiss her back.” She knows she sounds almost defensive and she hopes that Tracy is too hungover to notice. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work. Please don’t tell anyone. Not even David. I just want to forget it ever happened, alright?”

Tracy grins. “Good luck with that. Can’t see Charity forgetting the fact that you punched her in the face any time soon.”

Vanessa groans as she picks up her sandwich and heads out of the shop and back towards the vets.

***************

Vanessa avoids the pub for the rest of the week. Partly because she wants to avoid Charity at all costs, but also because Rhona had told her that Charity had effectively barred her and she didn’t think it was wise to push her luck.

In the end, it’s Tracy that drags her in there, insisting that she has nothing to be ashamed of. That if anyone should be embarrassed about things, it’s Charity. Vanessa isn’t sure that Charity knows what shame is, but after a long day at work, her need for a cold pint wins out over her need to avoid the blonde landlady.

Charity is stood behind the bar, chatting away to Diane and Doug, but she looks up when Tracy and Vanessa walk in and she snarls.

“You’re barred,” she snipes.

Vanessa turns to go immediately, but Tracy grabs hold of her arm and stops her.

“I don’t think so. You were just as much in the wrong.”

Charity’s scowl falters slightly. She hadn’t expected Vanessa to tell anyone, but it’s clear that Tracy knows exactly what had provoked Vanessa’s violent outburst. Vanessa cowers slightly behind her sister, not meeting Charity’s eye. She’s obviously terrified that Charity is going to say something about the kiss in front of the whole pub.

“Fine, you can stay. But I’m not serving you.” She flounces into the back and a few moments later, Marlon appears, wiping his hands on a tea towel that he then throws over his shoulder.

“I’ve been told I have to serve you because she doesn’t trust herself not to knock you out,” he shrugs.

They are tucked away in the corner when Charity comes back out to serve a little later. Vanessa watches her out of the corner of her eye, but Charity seems to be pretending that she’s invisible.

“Maybe I should go and apologise?” she muses.

Tracy chokes a little on her pint. “What, why?”

“Well I did hit her…”

Tracy shakes her head and sighs. “You’ve got nothing to apologise for, but if it’ll make you feel better, go ahead.”

She waits until they’ve finished their drinks and are about to leave before she tentatively approaches the bar. When Charity notices her, she starts to head into the back again, presumably to fetch Marlon.

“Wait, Charity, can we talk?” Vanessa blurts out and Charity stops in her tracks. When she turns to look at her, Vanessa is half expecting her to say something cruel. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, for, you know…”

She can feel herself withering under Charity’s gaze. Her words feel heavy and clumsy in her mouth and she can feel her palms growing clammy. Charity simply folds her arms and stares at her, clearly amused by Vanessa’s nerves.

“For assaulting me?” She finishes Vanessa’s sentence for her impatiently.

There’s something about the brazen arrogance with which Charity speaks that riles Vanessa up all over again. She hadn’t expected an apology from the landlady, but she’d hoped that she might at least be a little more gracious in accepting her own.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly unprovoked, was it?” she grumbles, unable to meet Charity’s eyes. She doesn’t need to be looking at her to know that she’s smirking though.

“What can I say? Usually my gaydar is spot on.”

Something halfway between shame and rage burns Vanessa’s cheeks.

“I’m not gay,” she hisses, “and I’d appreciate it if you could keep that to yourself.”

“Oh, you would would you?” Charity trills, her lips curling smugly upwards into a malicious looking smile. “You know, you should really do something about that internalised homophobia Vanessa – it’s really not attractive.”

Charity turns and slopes off towards the back rooms of the pub then, leaving Vanessa flustered and unsure of what exactly her little chat with Charity had achieved. Had she accepted her apology or had Vanessa somehow managed to make things worse?

Before Charity’s connection to her dad had been revealed, Vanessa hadn’t had very many reasons to engage with the landlady other than to order a pint. Even those interactions were pretty limited because customer service wasn’t exactly a skill that Charity possessed. In fact, Vanessa much preferred to see Chas behind the bar because at least then, she knew there’d be some friendly banter. Charity, on the other hand, had this infuriating way of making you feel like she was doing you a favour by allowing you to drink in her pub.

There were a lot of things about Charity that Vanessa found infuriating now that she thought about it. The easy confidence that bordered on arrogance, the way she flirted with any bloke that looked remotely wealthy and of course the fact that she had almost sent her dad back to prison by framing him for fraud. Of all the Dingles that Vanessa had become acquainted with during her years in Emmerdale, Charity was definitely her least favourite.

Shaking her head, Vanessa makes her way back to Tracy. It had been stupid to expect Charity to act like an adult about the whole thing really. In fact, all talking to Charity had done was to give her one more opportunity to get under Vanessa’s skin. Cursing herself under her breath, Vanessa shrugs in response to Tracy’s inquisitive look.

“Complete waste of time. I’d get a more adult conversation from Johnny I think.”

Vanessa glares at Tracy as she opens her mouth, presumably to deliver a very unhelpful ‘I told you so’, and Tracy promptly closes her mouth again. As they grab their coats and head towards the exit, Vanessa glances back just once. Her blood seems to boil as she catches sight of Charity in the doorway behind the bar, arms folded and her eyes following Vanessa’s every move, offering up a sly wink as Vanessa turns to leave.

Biting down on her bottom lip, Vanessa decides then and there that she isn’t going to give Charity any more chances to wind her up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charity offers to help out at the school nativity but she has an ulterior motive...

It turns out that avoiding one Charity Dingle in a village as small as Emmerdale is not as easy as it seems. Suddenly, she seems to be everywhere – which is strange – because Vanessa had never really noticed her before. Actually, that’s not strictly true. Of course she’d noticed her. The woman was like some sort of magnet for drama and disaster so it was impossible not to notice her – but for the last five years of Vanessa’s life in the village, she had existed only on the periphery of Vanessa’s life. Even after she’d screwed her dad over, she’d sort of faded back into the background once the whole thing had blown over.

Now, she seemed to be bloody everywhere.

It was because of the cellar incident, of course. There’s something about almost kissing someone and then punching them that puts them firmly on your radar.

To give Charity credit, she does back off a little bit. Vanessa suspects it has something to do with the stolen Bentley and the fact that Chas has returned with a face like thunder.

She should be relieved that Charity’s attentions are otherwise occupied. And yet, she still finds herself seeking out the blonde every time she walks into the Woolpack and trying to ignore the stab of disappointment when she isn’t behind the bar.

It’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. The woman is a nightmare. She’s the most shameless, disingenuous and diabolical human being that Vanessa’s ever met.

And yet, there’s something about her that makes Vanessa feel more alive than she has in years. As though there were parts of her that had withered and died and like Dr. Frankenstein, Charity had somehow bought them back to life. Vanessa hates herself for craving Charity’s attention.

******************

Determined to forget all about Charity, she throws herself into supporting Rhona in her quest to keep Leo’s TA which includes helping to organise the school nativity. Everything is going perfectly, until a stomach bug sweeps through the school and takes out half of the performers. Marlon, Paddy and even Chas come to the rescue, offering to take over some of the lead roles, but that leaves them short on adult helpers to take tickets, seat parents, serve refreshments and help backstage.

In desperation, and with just a few hours until the show is due to begin, everyone rings friends and family to see if they can drum up some extra volunteers. Vanessa has no luck. Tracy’s in Hotten on a date night with David and Frank is already babysitting for Johnny. She returns to the group, exasperated.

Rhona, Paddy and Marlon haven’t had much luck either but Chas looks very pleased with herself.

“Our Charity has said she’ll do the refreshments,” she grins.

There’s a collective groan from the rest of the group then and Vanessa feels sick with dread. Rhona glances over sympathetically, knowing that things between her best friend and the blonde landlady have been rather strained since their argument in the cellar. However, it’s not like they really have much choice. With just a few hours to go until showtime, they need all the help they can get.

“Our Charity volunteered to help?” Marlon asks disbelievingly. “What did you have to bribe her with?”

Glancing at her cousin apologetically, Chas grimaces. “You’re covering her Saturday night shift. Sorry!”

Marlon does his best to look indignant and unimpressed, but he’s wearing Chas’ beige mini skirt and a donkey costume that’s at least ten times too small for him so no one can take him too seriously.

“Thanks a lot,” he sulks.

As the actors head off to rehearse their lines again, Vanessa pulls Rhona to one side.

“Charity? Rhona, please. Anyone but Charity!” she pleads, but Rhona simply shrugs.

“Sorry Ness, but we’re desperate… and you know, you are both grown ups. Can’t you just sort out your differences and get along?”

Vanessa hadn’t told Rhona the full extent of her and Charity’s disagreement. She’d wanted to, but given their history, she was paranoid that Rhona would start making assumptions about her sexuality again. The last thing she needed was Rhona doing her ally thing and dragging her to every gay club in a 20 mile radius. With an exasperated sigh, she heads backstage to make sure that all the kids and the big kids are all wearing the right costumes.

By the time she emerges back into the village hall, Charity has arrived and is in the middle of ribbing her cousins for their costume choices.

“If you’d told me you were all going to look this ridiculous, I’d have come for nothing!” she laughs, earning herself a sharp elbow in the side from Chas and a scowl from Marlon.

Rhona is nervous and flapping around like a headless chicken. Not that Vanessa’s ever seen a headless chicken flap around – but if she had, she reckons it might look something like Rhona does now. After seeking reassurance from Vanessa that the kids are all dressed and prepared, she pulls Charity over to the refreshment counter and starts micro-managing her – running through the price list and the different treats and drinks they have available. Charity looks fit to kill.

“I do own a pub love, I think I can manage a kiddy refreshment stand,” she snaps and Vanessa decides to intervene before her best friend gets her head bitten off. Dragging Rhona away from Charity, she encourages her to go and make sure all the seats are arranged properly, ready for when the parents start to arrive. She’s just about to head backstage again, when Charity chooses to acknowledge her existence.

“What are you supposed to be then?” she asks, leaning over the counter and dragging her eyes up and down Vanessa’s body with a little more scrutiny than Vanessa is comfortable with. She hates the way her heart beats a little faster when Charity looks at her.

“I’m the stage manager actually,” she grumbles, in no mood to entertain Charity’s petty wind ups.

Charity scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Of course you bloody are.”

She knows she shouldn’t take the bait. Shouldn’t let Charity get under her skin like this, but Vanessa’s never been particularly good at controlling her temper.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she demands. Charity’s smile widens at her response and Vanessa immediately regrets saying anything.

“Well, you’re a right little bossy boots aren’t you. A bit of a control freak.” Vanessa can feel her cheeks flushing with anger as she tries to bite back the overwhelming urge to knock the smirk right off Charity’s face. But her indignation only seems to amuse Charity more and she chuckles to herself, nodding her head towards Vanessa’s fists that are clenched by her side. “Truth hurts don’t it?”

“Yeah, well, you’re a – a -”

“Pathological interferer wasn’t it?” Charity interrupts, referring to one of the many insults that Vanessa had hurled at her that night in the cellar. The reminder of that evening makes Vanessa’s cheeks colour even more.

“Does being this irritating take much effort, or does it just come naturally to you?” she snaps.

“I don’t know, is it difficult being this uptight and repressed or does it just come naturally from being so deep in the closet?” The comeback is instantaneous and Vanessa feels it like a punch in the stomach that takes the breath right out of her. Charity preens, clearly proud of her ability to inflict maximum damage with her insults.

Deciding that a children’s nativity is not the best place to get into a raging argument with Charity, Vanessa decides to walk away before she says or does something she really regrets.

****************

Charity finds a stool to perch on behind the counter and amuses herself by watching the rest of the so-called adults in the room get themselves all worked up rehearsing their lines. She’d gotten a Saturday night off by doing this, but truth be told, she’d been happy to volunteer. It wasn’t like she had anything except a night in front of the TV to look forward to, and besides, she’d known that Vanessa would be here.

There’s something about Vanessa Woodfield that has piqued her curiousity, which in itself is quite unusual. Very few people are usually interesting enough to warrant her attention, but there’s something about Vanessa that makes Charity want to keep scratching at the surface, poking and picking at the prim and proper exterior to try and uncover something a little darker.

She knows its there. Hidden away like a pearl inside an oyster, just waiting for someone to crack open the shell and find it. Charity had glimpsed it, that night in the cellar, in the split second before Vanessa had punched her. She’d felt the electricity between them, how it had crackled in the spaces between their bodies as she’d pressed herself, flesh to flesh, against Vanessa. The woman may have half the alphabet behind her name and present herself as a professional, perfect mother, but there was so much more to her than that and Charity wanted to find out what it was.

It was just one more of her many talents. It came so naturally to her, that half the time she didn’t even know she was doing it. It had taken her years to figure out what it was and start using it to her advantage. In the beginning, she hadn’t wanted it to happen. She’d wanted the people she loved to stay safe and dependable, wanted to believe that the person she’d fallen for was exactly who they were. But everyone has a dark side. Everyone has something they want to hide. Whether she means to or not, Charity has the uncanny ability to peel away the layers of respectability and find the monsters underneath.

She’s a little disappointed when Vanessa spends the rest of the afternoon avoiding her. Winding people up was something that Charity prided herself on, and she had been certain that a few perfectly crafted insults would be all she’d need to get under the vet’s skin and draw the darkness to the surface again. But it hadn’t. Rather than bite, Vanessa had just walked away and was now doing an excellent job of pretending that Charity didn’t exist.

Perhaps, Charity muses, she needs to take a different tact.

“What are you playing at?”

Chas has found her way over to the counter, having left Paddy practicing his lines with Marlon. Charity hadn’t seen her approaching and hadn’t known she was being watched.

“What do you mean?” she asks defensively, dragging her eyes away from Vanessa and meeting her cousin’s gaze.

“You know what I mean. Why are you winding up Vanessa?”

Charity pretends to be offended, but its pointless because Chas knows what she’s like.

“She punched me!” Charity exclaims, as if it completely justifies her behaviour.

“And I’m sure she had a bloody good reason knowing you.” Chas’ eyes narrow on her cousin. “Just leave her alone Charity, okay?”

Before Charity can respond, Chas has waddled back off to Paddy and left her alone. She searches for Vanessa again, but she’s no where to be seen.

*******************

The show turns out to be quite entertaining. You’d think Chas was performing on the West End by the way she delivers all of her lines with dramatic pause and exaggerated gestures. Paddy forgets more lines than all the kids put together, but Vanessa is standing by to whisper them to him and save him from total humiliation. Marlon looks like a total prat, but the parents seem to think he’s hilarious, so she guesses that it’s not a complete disaster.

At the intermission, parents and children flock to her counter and Charity does her best to serve them all before its time for the rest of the show to start. Rhona jumps on to help her out and between them, they manage to sell pretty much everything.

With her job technically done, she contemplates slipping out during the second half and heading home before she can be roped into tidying up duties.

Just as she’s about to grab her coat, something makes her look back towards the stage. She’s surprised to find Vanessa is looking at her with a look that stops her in her tracks. Almost immediately, Vanessa drops her gaze and turns her attention back to the stage, but there had been something in her expression that for once hadn’t been complete and utter contempt. It was as though for just a second, Charity had caught her with her guard down.

It was enough for her to put her coat back down and stay.

***************

The cast get a standing ovation in the end, having somehow muddled through lines they’d only read for the first time that morning. She’d had to whisper nearly every line to Paddy, but the audience had been far too focussed on Chas’ theatrics and Marlon’s idiocy to notice really.

When the lights go up, the actors disappear back stage to get changed whilst Rhona and Jessie stand at the doors thanking everyone for coming as they head home, and in the first moment of quiet she’s had all day, Vanessa hoists herself up onto the stage and takes a breath. She closes her eyes and squeezes the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger to try and release the tension headache she can feel throbbing there. It had been a very long and very noisy day and she was secretly glad that she’d taken her dad up on his offer to have Johnny over night.

“Well, that wasn’t a complete disaster.” For a moment she had forgotten that Charity was there. She’d half hoped that she’d have slinked off after the intermission and she was doing her damnedest to ignore the other half of her that hadn’t hoped that at all. Opening one eye, she’s surprised to see that Charity has joined her on the stage.

“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” she admits cautiously, waiting for Charity to add something a bit more cutting and cruel.

“I suppose your bossiness comes in handy sometimes, keeping that lot in line. Worse than the kids aren’t they?” She nods her head backwards just as they hear Paddy squeal and Chas burst into a fit of giggles.

Vanessa stares hard at Charity, unsure if she’s somehow stepped into some alternate dimension where Charity is an actual human being capable of having an adult conversation. But there’s no smirk to her smile and no cruelty in her eyes. She’s just about to ask Charity if she’s been drinking when Rhona makes her way over looking exhausted and like every last nerve is shot. Paddy, Chas and Marlon reappear too with the last few kids in tow who rush off to waiting parents near the exit.

After congratulating each other, Marlon heads off home with April and Leo while Paddy and Chas make their excuses and follow shortly after, giggling like a pair of lovestruck teenagers. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what they’re up to and Vanessa can see the sadness in her best friends eyes.

“Look, why don’t you head home and get an early night? You’ve not stopped all day. I can tidy up.”

Rhona yawns as if on cue but shakes her head. “No, Ness, I can’t leave you to tidy this mess up on your own.” She waves her hands around at the sweet wrappers and empty cans of pop that littler the floor of the village hall. “Back stage is probably a mess too,” she adds.

“I’ll help for a bit,” Charity pipes up and both Vanessa and Rhona turn to look at her as if she’s grown another head. “What? Do you think I wanna go home and be listening to them two? No thank you.” She grimaces and shudders at the image she’s conjured up for herself. Rhona looks between the pair of them suspiciously.

“No winding each other up alright? I don’t want Harriet to be knocking on my door in the morning because you two have killed each other.”

Vanessa raises an eyebrow to Charity who scoffs loudly. “I’ll try my best. No promises though.”

Rhona doesn’t look convinced and she drags Vanessa to the exit with her when she’s ready to leave.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own with her? No fighting?”

Vanessa looks back towards Charity who is picking up rubbish and pretending she doesn’t know that they’re obviously discussing her.

“It shouldn’t take long with two of us. No fighting, I promise. Scouts honour.” Vanessa does what she thinks is the scouts salute and smiles hopefully at Rhona, who looks unconvinced but also exhausted. It is exhaustion that wins out in the end and reluctantly, she leaves them to it.

They work in silence for a while, Charity collecting the rubbish and Vanessa stacking the chairs up and moving them to the side of the hall. Occasionally, Vanessa braves a glance in Charity’s direction, surprised to find her doing the same thing. They both look away when they catch the other person looking.

“Listen,” Vanessa says, deciding that they might as well clear the air. “I really am sorry for hitting you that night in the cellar. It was a reflex thing. I don’t know where it came from at all.”

Charity smirks and opens her mouth to speak, no doubt to respond with something cutting and sarcastic, but at the last minute she clamps her mouth closed again and seems to change her mind.

“Yeah, well… maybe I sort of deserved it,” she mutters instead and Vanessa reckons that’s the closest she’s going to get to an apology from Charity.

“Yeah, well. Thanks I guess,” she mumbles awkwardly, and Charity smiles.

“You know, there’s a bottle of red wine left behind the counter. Would be a shame to waste it don’t you think?”

There was no denying that it had been the sort of day that required a few glasses of wine to unwind from, but Vanessa couldn’t help remembering what had happened the last time she and Charity had drank together. Charity seems to sense her hesitation.

“Look, I promise not to kiss you this time alright?” Charity laughs, and against her better judgement, Vanessa picks up two chairs and follows Charity towards the little kitchen area.

*********************

“What time is it?” Vanessa asks, sulking as she pours the final drops of wine into her plastic cup and peers into the bottle to find it is indeed empty. She’s not entirely sure how they’ve managed to polish off a whole bottle of wine in what feels like half an hour.

“Erm, it’s… half past eleven actually,” Charity slurs, going cross eyed as she tries to focus on the screen of her phone. Vanessa can’t quite believe it. If it’s half past eleven, that means they’ve been drinking and chatting for about 2 hours.

Conversation had flowed surprisingly easy with Charity. They’d started off playing it safe – kids, work, general village gossip. It had turned out that they had a fair few things in common, namely a love for winding up Paddy and a shared hatred of the Baby Shark song. Between glasses of wine, they’d even managed to finish tidying up and had now forsaken chairs in favour of the floor.

“Right, here’s a question for you,” Charity grins, leaning her head back against the cupboard she’s slouched against. “If you could banish anyone from the village, who would it be?”

Charity’s questions had been getting more and more personal, and the last few questions had been pretty transparant attempts to get Vanessa to admit to disliking people. According to Charity, it was impossible for anyone to be as sickeningly nice as Vanessa and she isn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment or not. With three glasses of wine in her system, however, Vanessa can feel her inhibitions melting away.

“Well, Kirin, Rakesh and Pierce are kind of banished already, so I guess I’ll go with Jai.”

“Oh my god, same!” Charity’s eyes widen with excitement. “Why would you banish him though? He didn’t marry you and then have a secret baby with someone else too did he?”

Vanessa laughs. “Not quite no. But he did push me over in a drug-fuelled rage about an hour before I went into premature labour.”

Charity’s jaw drops. She’d been in prison when Johnny had been born so she hadn’t known the details of how he came to be born so early.

“What a prick!” she mutters through gritted teeth. “Did you know he chained me up inside a shipping container once, without food or water, for like a week?”

“You’re kidding?” she gasps. “Why didn’t he go to prison?”

“It’s a long story,” Charity shrugs, and she turns her face away from Vanessa, sending a clear signal that they are done discussing Jai. The silence makes Vanessa uneasy and the wine has made her tongue loose – which has never been a good combination in the past.

“Is it my turn to ask a question?” she asks, feeling far braver than she should be. Charity turns back and meets her eyes curiously.

“Okay, but I reserve the right not to answer,” she insists, crossing her arms.

“Why did you try and kiss me?” It was a question that had been bothering her ever since that night in the cellar but she hadn’t had the courage to ask Charity until now. Whatever tension had been between them, however, seemed to have thawed somewhere between their first and second glass of wine.

Charity considers the question for a while, head bowed and fingers tapping out a tune against the empty plastic cup in her hands.

“If I tell you the truth, you have to promise not to punch me again.”

Suddenly Vanessa’s not sure she wants to know the answer to her question. If Charity thinks she’ll respond violently, it certainly can’t be good.

“Deal,” she says anyway, holding out her pinky for Charity to seal the deal. Charity stares at her for a moment, perhaps unsure if Vanessa is the type of person to keep her pinky promises.

“Right. Well, I kissed you because you were being mean and I wanted you to stop,” Charity admits truthfully with a little shrug of her shoulders. She watches Vanessa’s reaction cautiously, and her body tenses as if she is ready to make a run for it if Vanessa decides to punch her anyway.

But it had been pretty much what Vanessa had expected. “And I’m assuming you thought I’d kiss you back?”

“I thought there was a 50/50 chance maybe,” Charity admits.

“A strange way to shut someone up though,” Vanessa muses.

“Well, you were looking kind of hot in that dress and cape.” Charity’s eyes seem to darken as she speaks and Vanessa feels her heart speeding up again.

“I had no idea you fancied women,” she murmurs shyly, suddenly feeling a bit too sober to be having this kind of conversation with Charity.

“Why does it have to be about fancying men or women? Why can’t you just find a person hot and want to kiss them?”

Charity made it all sound so simple and easy, but in Vanessa’s experience, her feelings for women had been anything but. She’d been made to feel like some sort of leper for falling in love with Rhona, as though her feelings had been sordid and ugly. Though she’d always known deep down that she had feelings for women that went beyond the usual admiration and friendship, it had always been easier to ignore them.

And then along came Charity, with a kiss that hadn’t even been entirely genuine, and she was floundering all over again. Questioning herself and wondering more than she should about what might have happened if she’d kissed Charity back.

“I take it it’s not that simple for you?” Charity asks quietly then, pulling Vanessa out of her own head and back into the moment. There’s a kindness in Charity’s eyes, she notices, an understanding that makes Vanessa shift uncomfortably. It suddenly feels like it would be the easiest thing in the world to tell Charity the truth. How she hadn’t been confused when she’d loved Rhona. How being around Charity made it almost impossible to think or speak coherently. How she’d punched her simply because the desire to kiss her back had been too frightening.

“I’m going home,” she says instead, scrambling to her feet and swaying slightly. Charity looks up at her, clearly disappointed, but not particularly shocked. She gets to her feet slowly, collects her coat with a sigh and follows Vanessa to the door. She waits patiently while Vanessa turns out the lights and locks the door.

“I should walk you home,” she insists as Vanessa struggles with the key before stumbling into the wall as she tries to return the key to her purse.

Charity is standing unbearably close and she’s not sure she can blame the way she shivers entirely on the cold weather. When she looks back up, she can’t help the small gasp that escapes her throat as Charity steps even closer. Her eyes linger on Vanessa’s lips as she leans lazily against the door they’ve just locked.

“Honestly, I’m fine,” Vanessa takes a step back but her foot slides off the step as she does and her ankle twists painfully as she tries to regain her balance. Instinctively, Charity reaches out to grab hold of her and stop her from falling and the sudden contact makes Vanessa’s breath hitch.

“Falling for me already Vanessa?” Charity jokes, letting her hand linger a little longer than it needs to on Vanessa’s arm. Vanessa groans as she tries to put her weight back on both ankles, flinching only slightly as it twinges.

“I really need to go.” Her voice is quieter than she intends for it to be and despite her best efforts, she can’t seem to make herself move.

“I have one more question before you go,” Charity says quietly, her long blonde hair whipping around her face in the December wind. She waits for Vanessa to answer but all she can seem to do is stare dumbly at Charity and nod her head. “If I tried to kiss you again, would you still punch me?”

Vanessa feels her head shake from side to side traitorously, as her eyes fall to Charity’s lips.

This time, when Charity kisses her, she doesn’t punch her. Instead, she pays attention to the rush of her blood to the surface of her skin as the distance between them closes. Every nerve in her body feels like a livewire, jumping to meet Charity’s touch when she brings her hands up to hold Vanessa’s face. Her fingers are cold but soft as they slide around her jaw.

The kiss is unlike anything she’s ever experienced. She had expected it to be like kissing Rhona, but it’s immediately obvious that it’s completely different. There’s no hesitation and uncertainty in the way that Charity kisses her, her lips are firm and confident as they brush softly against her own.

Vanessa can’t seem to stop herself from responding and the moment she does, Charity immediately deepens the kiss, capturing Vanessa’s bottom lip between her own. She finds herself being turned and then backed up against the door of the village hall. With a gasp, she shudders as Charity’s body leans into hers, breast to breast and hip to hip.

For the whole thirty seconds that Charity is kissing her, the rest of the world seems to fade out of existence and all of the anxiety she had felt about what wanting to kiss Charity back might mean seems woefully unimportant. For thirty seconds, Vanessa Woodfield feels more alive than she ever has.

But when Charity’s hands get a little too brave and slip beneath Vanessa’s shirt, it seems to break whatever spell her lips had put Vanessa under. With a gasp, she backs away, holding her hands out firmly to keep Charity at a distance while she catches her breath.

There are probably 99 reasons why kissing Charity Dingle is the most stupid thing she could do. Besides the fact that she’s a woman, and that enjoying kissing her kind of blows everything Vanessa had been repressing for most of her life to the surface, there’s also quite simply the fact that she’s Charity bloody Dingle. The woman who had blackmailed her dad for months before framing him for fraud.

“Sorry,” she gasps, “but I shouldn’t have done that. That was a mistake. I’d had too much wine.”

Her brain clutches desperately at any excuse she can think of but Charity just watches her with that infuriating smirk back on her face.

“Or, you know, maybe you just like kissing girls?” she suggests, stepping closer to Vanessa again.

Shoving Charity back, Vanessa limps backwards herself.

“It was a mistake. Just leave me alone. I need to go home.”

Nothing that comes tumbling from her mouth sounds convincing. It doesn’t even sound like her own voice. Vanessa makes her way carefully down the step and starts hobbling backwards towards Tug Ghyll. She keeps her eyes firmly on Charity until she’s confident that the other woman won’t try and follow her. She simply stands there, watching Vanessa leave, shaking her head.

Eventually, Vanessa turns and picks up her pace until she crashes through the front door of Tug Ghyll and slams it behind her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This fic has become more of an experiment. If one thing is different about the beginning, could they still get from point A to point B, but take a different path to get there? It's also allowing me to try and figure out the way each of them might have felt in the early days. Please tell me if I'm getting it completely wrong!

“What are you looking so smug about?” Chas asks as she makes her way through the living room towards the kitchen. Her cousin’s voice startles Charity from her thoughts and blinking, she looks up to meet her cousin’s suspicious gaze. It takes her a moment to process Chas’ question.

“Oh nothing,” she grins, turning back to her tea, surprised that it has gone cold.

She’d been thinking about Vanessa of course and the events of the previous evening that had led to them kissing in the dark outside of the village hall. It had been some kiss. Charity couldn’t remember the last time she had been kissed like that. Everything about the moment had felt heightened somehow, as if the whole thing had happened in slow motion, every brush of their lips amplified and the feel of Vanessa’s tongue against her own, intensified.

Before that kiss, it had all been about pushing Vanessa, getting her to admit to herself, and to Charity, that she was attracted to women. Though she’d ran away as fast as her twisted ankle could carry her in the end, the fact remained that no straight woman could have kissed Charity like Vanessa did. And that should be the end of things. Mission accomplished. Challenge won. There was no other reason for her to pursue Vanessa now. Except for an unexpected and almost insatiable desire to be kissed by her again.

Charity isn’t sure what she really wants – what the long term goal is of this game of cat and mouse that she’s started to play with Vanessa. But she knows that she isn’t done yet. She’s had a taste of what it might feel like to be cherished and desired by Vanessa, and she knows she wants more.

“Right, well, you usually only look that smug when you’ve managed to trap some poor, rich bloke or someone you dislike has had some sort of misfortune befall them, so which is it?” Chas demands.

Charity tries to look offended, but it’s no good. It’s hard to be offended by facts. Chas is half right anyway, only Vanessa is neither a bloke nor rich. Not by Charity’s usual standards anyway. Which begs the question, Charity muses, what is it about the woman that Charity can’t get enough of?

Thinking back, to all of her previous conquests, she realises that everyone she’s been with before has had a dark side. Chris was jealous, Cain was violent, Jai was controlling and Declan was basically a psychopath. Even Zoe had been manipulative. Vanessa was none of those things. If she had a dark side, it was so well hidden that even Charity couldn’t sniff it out. In comparison to Charity’s ex-lovers, Vanessa was pure and good and just about everything that Charity wasn’t. And if Vanessa could be attracted to her – perhaps it meant that was something pure still left in Charity.

“Honestly, no bloke and the last time I checked, Megan is still breathing.” Chas rolls her eyes and flicks on the kettle, pulling two cups down from the cupboard. Charity watches her for a moment. “What are you doing up so early anyway?” she asks. “Thought you were on a promise last night and I’d have to drag you out of bed.”

“Ugh, no such luck,” Chas grumbles. “He only went and fell asleep didn’t he… before, well, before anything could happen.” She raises her eyebrows in such a way that Charity immediately understands the subtext of her cousin’s words. She spits out the cold tea that she’d just taken a sip of as an ear-piercing cackle erupts from her lips.

“Oh babe!” she exclaims, slapping her knee as the cackle becomes a chortle before evolving into a fit of giggles that she struggles to reign under control.

“Oh shut up,” Chas scowls. “And don’t you dare mention that to anyone, especially Paddy. He’s embarrassed enough as it is.” She stares hard at Charity, waiting for some assurance that Charity will keep her gob shut. Reluctantly, Charity nods, deciding that this little nugget of information is probably best saved for a rainy day anyway.

“I promise. Anyway, I’m going to go get a shower while you’re on the early shift.”

She’s eating her lunch before starting her shift when Vanessa storms into the living room from the direction of the bar. Charity almost swallows the mouthful of crusty bread whole, coughing and spluttering a little as Vanessa stands in the middle of the room and looks around.

“Chas let me through,” she explains, though Charity hadn’t asked the question. She goes quiet then. At first Charity wonders if she’s forgotten what she came to say, but then she notices that Vanessa is staring at the photographs on the wall – framed pictures of her with her kids and her family. By the time Charity has managed to swallow her food, Vanessa is speaking again.

“I just wanted to apologise about last night,” she recites woodenly, as though she’s reading from a script. “It was a massive, monumental mistake and it won’t be happening again. I’d appreciate it if we could just forget it happened and keep it between us.”

With her speech given, Vanessa folds her arms in front of her defensively and seems to be awaiting some sort of agreement from Charity. She can’t look at her though. Not properly. Instead, her eyes seem to be drilling a hole into Charity’s left shoulder. Though she’s doing her best to sound like she knows exactly how she feels about the whole thing, Charity can sense that she’s not completely convinced.

“Do you want to sit down?” she asks, taking a sip of her water and waving her right hand towards the sofa. Vanessa stares at the sofa for a few seconds, as if she expects it to be some sort of trap, but eventually, with some reluctance, she sits. Charity watches her for a moment. She can almost hear the tension and anxiety humming in Vanessa’s muscles. She’s no stranger to the fight or flight response. It’s where she spends most of her waking moments.

Slowly, Charity stands and makes her way over to the sofa, leaving just a little bit of space between herself and Vanessa when she sits down. Vanessa’s eyes dart to the door.

“Do you know what I think?” Charity murmurs quietly, placing one finger on Vanessa’s knee and smiling when she feels Vanessa shiver at the contact. Unable to speak, Vanessa can only shake her head in response as she stares at Charity’s hand. “Well, I think if you want someone to forget that you kissed them, then you should make your kisses a little bit more forgettable.”

Vanessa swallows and lets out a shaky breath. “It can’t happen again, it was a mistake,” she repeats, but her voice trembles and Charity can tell she no longer believes the words coming out of her mouth.

“Well that’s a shame,” Charity whispers, leaning a little closer to Vanessa, “because I was thinking about you a lot last night.” She leans in even closer, until her mouth is barely an inch from Vanessa’s ear. The moan that escapes Vanessa’s lips involuntarily is practically indecent. Charity watches as her tongue darts out to wet her lips.

“We can’t,” she insists breathlessly. “You’re just trying to mess with my head, like you did with my dad.”

Charity isn’t sure whether Vanessa is trying to convince her, or herself. Her little theory isn’t completely beyond the realm of possibility. For a split second, she imagines Frank’s face if they were to sleep together and he found out and it is an hilarious image. And yet, until Vanessa had mentioned his name, Frank hadn’t crossed her mind once. She wonders how much of her behaviour is just everyone else's self-fulfilling prophecy.

“You’re wrong,” she husks, “I just want to make you feel good.”

Vanessa’s gaze drops then, landing firmly on Charity’s lips. Moving a fraction of an inch closer, the warmth of Vanessa’s breath is almost intoxicating. Surprisingly, it’s Vanessa who closes the remaining distance between them, until their lips are barely touching.

“Charity! You were meant to start your shift fifteen minutes ago!”

Chas’ voice echoes through the room like a foghorn before she’s even managed to open the door. Vanessa leaps up off the couch just as the brunette storms in. The tension in the room is clearly palpable as Chas looks suspiciously between the two women and attempts to read the room.

“I have to go,” Vanessa croaks before clearing her throat. She shuffles past Chas and marches back out into the pub and Charity growls in her cousin’s direction.

“I thought I told you to leave Vanessa alone?”

Charity pushes past her out into the bar without even acknowledging her question. Vanessa has already left. Kicking a nearby box of crisps, Charity briefly considers going after her before coming to her senses. After all, it’s not like chasing Vanessa is anything more than a bit of fun and considering Vanessa clearly wasn’t opposed to being chased, it would only be a matter of time before Vanessa came back for more.

****************

It turns out that Vanessa has far more self control than Charity had given her credit for. She doesn’t come back in the pub at all before Christmas. When Paddy and Rhona come in with one of their ‘highly valued clients’, Charity tries to appear nonplussed when she asks why Vanessa isn’t with them.

“Apparently, she couldn’t get a babysitter for Johnny,” Rhona explains, but the way Paddy scoffs and rolls his eyes suggests that Vanessa’s excuse isn’t universally believed.

It’s mid-January before she sees Vanessa again.

With all the drama surrounding Joe Tate, Charity had almost forgotten about Vanessa, but when she looks up from serving Jimmy a pint and spots her sat in the corner with Rhona, she struggles to conceal her excitement. Paddy comes over to order drinks and she carefully avoids talking about Vanessa, only stealing occasional glances when she’s sure she won’t be noticed.

She’s pretending to read a magazine, flicking through the glossy pages absent-mindedly, when Rhona approaches the bar.

“Same again?” she asks nonchalantly.

“Actually, I was wanting to ask a favour.”

Rhona looks almost terrified, and Charity can’t help but smirk. She loves that people are intimidated by her. Being unapproachable generally saves her from spending a lot of time and energy on mostly inconsequential people.

“Not a big fan of favours unless there’s something in it for me.” Charity folds her arms on the bar and leans forward a little, waiting for Rhona to spit out whatever it is she’s after.

“We’re trying to raise money for the school, so that Leo can have a TA who knows sign language, and I was wondering if we could hold a skills auction here in a few weeks?”

“And whose skills will you be auctioning off?” Charity muses, after a moments thought.

“Erm, well so far we’ve got Paddy, Ness, Bernice and Doug but I’m hoping to get a few more people involved. And of course, everyone who attends will need a drink won’t they?” Rhona adds hopefully.

Charity had been sold on the idea the moment Rhona had mentioned Vanessa being up for auction but she does a good impression of being reluctant.

“Well, I suppose Leo is my nephew isn’t he… or some sort of relation anyway. I never know for sure with my lot. Yeah, go on then.”

Rhona squeals before regaining her composure and ordering another round of drinks. When she returns to her table, updating Paddy and Vanessa with animated gestures, Charity catches Vanessa glancing over. When their eyes meet, Vanessa smiles shyly before turning away again. It’s barely a few seconds, but it makes Charity feel oddly warm.

A little later, Vanessa comes to buy the third round and Charity tries not to look surprised.

“So, what skills are you offering up at this auction then?” she asks.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Vanessa mumbles, looking a little embarrassed. “And erm, thanks, for, you know, letting Rhona host it here. It should really help Leo.”

It’s almost cute how flustered Vanessa is around her, and Charity has to bite back the urge to flirt outrageously just to see if she will eventually spontaneously combust. But flirting hadn’t gotten her any further with Vanessa than toying with her had and Charity really didn’t want her to stop coming in the pub again. Despite being somewhat out of her comfort zone, Charity decides to try a different approach.

“Well, he’s Marlon’s kid and Marlon’s some sort of cousin isn’t he, and we look out for each other so…” She shrugs as the sentence trails off, unfinished. She’s finished pouring the last pint and holds out her hand for the money with a smile. When Vanessa hands over the £10 note, their fingers brush ever so slightly and Charity feels that same charge between them that had been there in the cellar, at the village hall and in the back rooms of the pub. She knows Vanessa feels it too because her eyes snap to Charity’s and she pulls her hands back hastily.

“Listen,” Charity says as she hands Vanessa her change, “I don’t want you to have to keep away from the pub because of me. Let’s just forget about it all yeah? I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

For a split second, she swears she can see a flash of disappointment on Vanessa’s face. It disappears just as quickly, replaced by an expression Charity assumes is supposed to look like relief.

“I’d really appreciate that Charity, thank you.”

Vanessa takes the drinks back to her friends, reinserting herself into whatever scintillating conversation they’re having. Charity watches her out of the corner of her eye and smiles to herself when she catches Vanessa looking over more than once.

Charity doesn’t mind playing the long game every now and then.

******************

On the day of the auction, Rhona and Vanessa arrive early to set up. Harriet has given them a dais to use and Jessie has given them a box of old ping pong bats from the PE cupboard that they can fashion into bidding paddles. Charity is around, serving customers but always finding time to replenish their orange juices. She keeps her word, about leaving Vanessa alone, though she smiles whenever their eyes meet. Vanessa has stopped turning away.

It doesn’t make sense of course. For months, Charity has been tormenting her in one way or another and driving Vanessa mad. She’d long since given up lying to herself that she wasn’t attracted to Charity – wasn’t attracted to women – because it was becoming increasingly bloody obvious that she was. She’d even spoke to Tracy about being open to dating women in the future. She probably would have told more people but considering she’s only ever kissed two women in her entire life, it seemed silly to make a fuss about something that hadn’t actually happened yet. Perhaps she’d sleep with a woman and hate it and then she’d feel silly for having labelled herself something like bisexual based off a few heated kisses.

What she was sure of, was that taking things further with Charity would be a disaster. Not just because of the stuff that had happened with her dad, but because of everything that happened with Kirin. She had known he was childish and immature, of course, but when he’d killed Tess and then gone on the run, abandoning her and Johnny to go and hide in a foreign country – it had hurt more than she probably ever let on to anyone. She wasn’t a goody two shoes by any stretch of the imagination, but she didn’t want to get involved with anyone who wasn’t at the very least law-abiding, if not for her own sake – then for Johnny’s. And Charity Dingle was definitely not law abiding. She even made some of the other Dingle’s look positively angelic.

And yet, now that Charity had backed off, Vanessa found herself looking at Charity a little differently. She watched her serving customers with an easy smile and an infectious laugh and began allowing herself to notice the things she’d been avoiding noticing for months. Like how devastatingly beautiful Charity was when she thought no one was watching her or how her green eyes were almost grey when she was sad but were brighter whenever she laughed. And then there was the effortless confidence with which Charity moved and spoke and commanded a room. Vanessa watches her call all the punters to attention when the auction is about to start, and everyone stops to listen before she hands them over to Rhona.

Marlon is up first, and Rishi bids £70 for the privilege of having him cook his dinner. Marlon then ends up bidding £50 for Jessie’s tuition skills, though he claims it was completely by accident. By the time it’s Vanessa’s turn, everyone is getting into the swing of things, but it doesn’t stop her from feeling nervous. She’d thought about offering up something vet related, but Paddy had beaten her to it with his pet pedicures so Rhona had suggested she offer up her knitting skills instead. She’d loved the hat that Vanessa had knitted for Leo’s birthday after all. Reluctantly, Vanessa had agreed but only after getting her dad to promise to bid on her if the whole thing bombed.

She doesn’t bomb. Weirdly, a few locals fancy the idea of learning to knit. After her dad bids £20, Rishi and Diane get into a little bit of a bidding war with each other, driving the total up to £80. When Diane bows out of the bidding race, Vanessa resigns herself to the fact that she’ll be teaching Rishi to knit, but before Rhona can bang her gavel for the third and final time, another ping pong bat shoots up behind the bar and she hears Charity call out “£85!”.

Everyone in the pub turns to look at her and then back at Vanessa. Of course no one can believe that Charity wants to learn to knit, but Charity doesn’t seem at all fazed by everyone's curiosity. When Rishi offers up £90, Charity raises her bid to £100 and Rishi shakes his head, admitting defeat.

“Sold to Charity!” Rhona cries, banging her gavel and mouthing a silent apology to her friend.

“What was that about?” Frank asks, the minute she steps off stage. Megan is behind him looking just as concerned. It’s not exactly been a secret that she and Charity don’t get along.

“I have no idea Dad, maybe she’s just messing with me again. But if it puts money in the pot for Leo, I suppose I can put up with her for an hour and teach her how to make a scarf.”

Later, she catches Charity during a lull.

“Never in a million years would I have thought you’d want to learn to knit,” she whispers.

Charity laughs and shrugs. “I reckon there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me Vanessa,” she replies accusingly. “Did no one ever tell you not to judge a book by their cover?”

It was as though Charity had somehow read her mind. Knew exactly why Vanessa was avoiding her and didn’t want to be around her. For a brief moment, Vanessa wondered if maybe she had been too hasty in judging Charity. It was, after all, a bit ludicrous to assume that the dodgy dealings she’d been involved in over the years were all there was to know about her. Although Vanessa often wished life could be simple, she had to admit that things were rarely, if ever, black and white.

“So when would you like your knitting lesson?” Vanessa asked.

“Tomorrow?” Charity suggested. “I finish my shift at 4pm?”

*****************

She’s running a bit late the next day after dropping Johnny off at her dad’s and Chas has already taken over when she arrives, a little flustered and with all of her knitting supplies shoved into a bag for life. Chas is serving, but when she spots Vanessa she nods her head towards the back room.

“She said to send you through when you got here,” she explains. She must see something in Vanessa’s expression then, because she laughs. “Reckon you’ll earn that £100 trying to teach our Charity how to knit.”

For some reason, Vanessa had assumed they’d be meeting in the pub, where there would be other people around. Where Charity would have hopefully had to behave herself. Reluctantly, she rounds the bar and heads through to the back.

She pops her head around the door cautiously and clears her throat to announce her presence. Charity is sat on the couch with her legs curled under her, with her phone in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

“Thought you’d stood me up,” she admits, pouring some more wine into a second glass on the coffee table and holding it out for Vanessa to take. Vanessa accepts the glass, putting it back down immediately so she can take off her jacket.

“You know, it probably isn’t wise to be under the influence and in charge of knitting needles,” she suggests with a raised eyebrow. After the village hall debacle, Vanessa has no intentions whatsoever of drinking with Charity.

“Funny you should say that,” Charity says sheepishly before taking another mouthful of wine. “You see, I don’t think knitting’s really my thing after all… so I was thinking you could knit me something for Moses instead.”

Vanessa has to bite her tongue. She wants to ask Charity why on earth she’d bid for a knitting lesson if she didn’t want to learn to knit, but she suspects that she already knows the answer. Not that she wants to hear Charity admit it. Instead, she decides not to rise to the bait. Besides, she thinks, she can knit a scarf much quicker than Charity ever could and it would be a lot easier than trying to teach Charity the basics.

“Fine,” she mutters, sitting down at the opposite end of the sofa and pulling her bag of supplies over. She throws a few different coloured balls of wool onto the sofa between them. “Choose one or two colours you like.”

Charity picks up each ball of yarn, holding two at a time close together. Eventually, she settles on orange and green, to match Moses’ wellies. She sits in silence while Vanessa casts on the orange wool and begins to knit, watching her closely and looking almost impressed at the deftness with which the knitting needles swoop and click in Vanessa’s hands.

“You’re pretty good,” she says finally, and Vanessa feels her cheeks warm at the compliment.

“Thanks,” she mutters, “but I might need to trade that wine in for a cup of tea if you don’t mind, otherwise Moses could end up with a very wonky looking scarf.”

It turns out that Vanessa doesn’t need alcohol to talk to Charity. It’s been over a month since the nativity, but they seem to pick up their conversation where it left off, as though it had only been yesterday. In the end, Vanessa has to slow right down with her knitting because she can’t concentrate on the scarf and the conversation at the same time.

“You know, I don’t think I’m going to finish this today. I might have to take it home and finish it,” Vanessa admits, holding up the half finished scarf. Charity doesn’t seem to mind.

“Put it away then and have a glass of wine before you go,” she insists.

Vanessa hesitates. Being around Charity is hard enough as it is, but without the distraction of knitting and the addition of alcohol, she’s fairly certain it will become impossible.

“What do you actually think I’m going to do?” Charity asks, sensing her anxiety. There’s a sadness in her voice, and she won’t look at her once she’s asked. Perhaps that is what makes Vanessa bold with honesty. Or perhaps it’s simply exhaustion, from fighting with herself and with Charity – the push and pull, the avoidance, the hiding.

“You’ve hurt people I love. And I just can’t see any real reason for you to have any sort of interest me,” she blurts out, surprised by her own bluntness. Charity startles a little, but it doesn’t seem to surprise her. Of course, she’s probably well aware of her own reputation and how few people trust her intentions. If anything, she looks defeated, staring into her wine, her bowed head hidden behind her long, blonde hair. When she speaks, her voice seems almost fragile.

“When I tried to kiss you in the cellar, I’ll admit, it was about the challenge of it. I knew there was an attraction there but you didn’t want to acknowledge it. I wanted to see if I could make you admit it to yourself.” She looks cautiously up at Vanessa. “But it’s not about that any more.

It takes her a moment to process Charity’s confession. It was what she had suspected all along, though she’d hoped she was wrong. She curses the small voice of hope that had been doing nothing but lulling her into a false sense of security.

“What makes you think you can just play with people like that?” she asks quietly. “So what if I am attracted to you, to women… what gives you the right to dictate when and how I figure all of that out?”

The anger that builds in her is rooted in shame. Shame that she’d allowed herself, somehow, to be Charity’s play thing. Worse, that she’d been trying to convince herself there was something genuine about the way the other woman felt about her.

Shame is an ugly thing and it hates it’s own reflection, hates to be seen. That’s why it twists itself into something else – something like anger.

Charity reaches out and tries to take her hand. “I swear, I don’t care about any of that any more. If I did, I’d have given up after we kissed. I’d have told people about the kiss, I…”

Vanessa pulls her hand away and stands, packing her belongings back into her bag as quickly as she can. She refuses to hear the vulnerability in Charity’s voice. Refuses to trust the fragile honesty she tries to offer up.

She doesn’t look back when she walks out of the door without saying another word. If she had, she might have seen the tears in Charity’s eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

She’s calmed down considerably by the time she gets home. Though she’s always had a short fuse, it often burns out before she explodes. Rationality usually prevails in the end.

And Charity’s confession had not been a shock. She knew enough about the woman to know that this was simply how she operated. As her mind clears, she realises that it wasn’t Charity she was angry with, but herself. Angry that in spite of all that the woman had done, Vanessa still wanted her.

When her dad drops Johnny off, he wants to know all about the knitting lesson, but Vanessa finds herself fobbing him off with vague answers and platitudes. She’s not yet sure how to explain to her dad that she fancies the pants off the very woman that had tried to ruin his life just six short months ago.

She tries to distract herself with Johnny – running his bath, reading him stories and then settling him down to sleep at last. Thoughts of Charity still fill in the gaps, the last words that she’d said lodging themselves like fish hooks into her brain. She didn’t care about games any more – but what did that really mean? Was she bored? Was she throwing Vanessa away like a toy that hadn’t ended up being as fun as you’d expected to be?

The house is quiet once Johnny is asleep. The silence is an almost deafening reminder of her loneliness. She picks up the latest copy of Veterinary Practice from the coffee table as she curls up on the sofa with a brew and a bag of popcorn. She flicks through the pages, past articles on common feline parasites and equine atypical myopathy, but she can’t seem to make herself focus on the words on the page. No matter how hard she tries, her thoughts return to Charity.

She’s just about to give up and get an early night when there’s a knock at the door.

Her first thought is that Leyla has forgotten her keys again and she has already mentally prepared an appropriate lecture by the time she’s unlocked the door and opened it. The words dissolve in her mouth when she finds Charity standing on her doorstep.

Vanessa keeps the half-opened door firmly between them as she takes in the sight of a wind-swept and shivering Charity.

“What do you want?” she blurts out. Charity scoffs and rolls her eyes and for a second, Vanessa expects her to storm off at the less than warm welcome. Vanessa finds herself mesmerised by the way Charity tenses her jaw and moves her tongue over her teeth when she’s annoyed.

“You didn’t really give me a chance to explain myself before,” Charity huffs, folding her arms around herself and bracing against the cold. She’s being aloof and defensive and almost angry at herself, as if her legs have carried her here to Vanessa’s doorstep against her will.

“Go home Charity,” she exhales with a sigh. She’s too tired and confused to keep arguing. As she moves to close the door, she doesn’t expect Charity to hold her hand out and stop her. Her eyes are suddenly softer and the smirk has gone from her lips.

“Please,” she says, barely a whisper.

Against her better judgement, Vanessa steps back and opens the door wide enough for Charity to slip inside. She follows her, watching as she pauses in the middle of the living room, eyes glancing skittishly about.

“It’s changed a lot since I lived here,” she mutters, more to herself than to Vanessa.

“Was there something you wanted to say?” Vanessa says impatiently. Charity shoves her hands into her pockets and nods but she still can’t seem to spit it out, or look at Vanessa. When they finally come, the words tumble out haphazardly.

“Look, you should know that I’m not very good at apologies… and I have a strange talent for saying the absolute worst things at the wrong time… and to be honest, I don’t really care most of the time…”

“Why are you here then?” Vanessa interrupts, startling Charity who considers her question for a moment before letting out a frustrated groan. Vanessa knows she isn’t making it easy for her, but being snippy and defensive is kind of her auto-setting when dealing with difficult people.

“Because you’re different aren’t you? Only I didn’t realise that at first…”

“What do you mean, ‘different’?” Vanessa asks with a raised eyebrow. She can’t help but smile when a faint blush colours Charity’s cheeks and she seems to stumble over her words.

“Well, I treat people like that – play games – because it’s how I’ve had to survive really. Most of the people I tend to get close to kind of deserve it. I’ve never really met anyone who’s surprised me.”

“That sounds pretty cynical… and lonely.”

Vanessa wants to ask what kind of life she’s had to make her feel that way. You’d have to have been treated pretty badly to have such a low opinion of the general population. There’s something in Charity’s demeanour however that stops her from asking.

Because if she was going to compare Charity to any of the animals she regularly treated at the surgery, she thinks she’s most like a feral cat. Skittish and permanently on edge, as though she’s ready to bolt if Vanessa pushes too far. So Vanessa doesn’t. Instead, she sits down in the arm chair and purposefully looks anywhere but at Charity. It gives Charity time and space to gather her thoughts and after a moment, she rounds the sofa and sits down.

“I’ve never met anyone I can’t manipulate into bed,” she admits. “You’re different, you keep me on my toes and I think that’s a big part of why I like you,”

Vanessa scoffs, leaning back in the chair. “Isn’t that exactly what you’d say if you were still playing games?” she asks.

“Maybe,” Charity says, glancing up from her hands to meet Vanessa’s eyes. “But it’s the truth. I don’t want to play games with you any more.

The words and the implied feelings behind them seem to fill up the spaces in Vanessa’s chest, and suddenly there isn’t enough room to breath. Standing, she shakes her hands a little at her sides as she tries to process what Charity is saying.

“I’m sorry,” she begins quietly, looking at the photos on her mantelpiece of Johnny. “I’m sorry that so many people have hurt you. But after everything you’ve said, how can I believe you?”

She hears Charity sigh and turns to face her. She looks almost sad and Vanessa wonders how suffocating it must be to live beneath the weight of everybody else's assumptions.

“You’re right,” she whispers. “You have to decide if you can trust me. You have to decide if it’s worth it. I think there’s something between us that could be fun, but it has to be your choice. So I’m going to back off and leave it up to you. You know where I am if you decide you like me too.”

Charity stands up to leave, and for a moment Vanessa is paralysed. Stunned into silence. She wants to tell Charity that she thinks she likes her too, but she also knows that Charity is right. She has to be sure. She has to decide if this is something that she really wants. Dumbly, she follows Charity to the front door and stands in the open space as Charity hovers on the doorstep, clearly wanting to say more.

Instead of words, she leans in and presses her lips firmly to the corner of Vanessa’s mouth. The contact is brief and as Charity moves away slightly and smiles, Vanessa chases her lips, capturing them easily. And kissing Charity is even better the second time around.

They find a rhythm almost instantly, and Vanessa shivers with pleasure when Charity’s fingers flutter against her neck and jawline. Her own hands slide around Charity’s hips, holding her in place until Charity pulls away, a soft smile on her face that Vanessa has never see before.

“What happened to backing off then?” Vanessa asks coyly and Charity laughs.

“Can’t make it too easy for you, can I?”

She does back off then, quite literally, moving backwards down the path and only turning her back on Vanessa when she reaches the gate. She looks back with one last devilishly gorgeous smile before heading off back to the pub.

“No,” Vanessa mutters to herself as she closes the door and leans against it, “You can’t make it easy at all.”

*******************

Charity keeps her word. She smiles at her in the pub the next day, but there’s no outrageous flirting or witty comments. She treats Vanessa just like any other customer, and after months of being the focus of Charity’s attention, the world suddenly seems a little more grey and boring without it.

“Has she gone off you then?” Tracy asks, nodding towards the bar where Charity is serving some random bloke that Vanessa’s never seen before. He’s clearly flirting with her too, and though she’s not flirting back, she’s not telling him to get lost either. Vanessa is a little surprised by the unmistakable feeling of jealousy she gets as she watches them.

“Huh?” she mutters, realising that Tracy had spoken. Her sister laughs and shakes her head.

“I said, has she gone off you? Given the way your staring at him, I’m guessing you’re not happy about it either.”

Vanessa’s jaw drops as she glares at her Tracy incredulously. The tension between herself and Charity was hardly a secret from those around them with eyes and ears, but Tracy was the first one to suggest there was more to it.

“I – I don’t know what you mean,” she scoffs, staring into her pint glass with a shrug.

“Oh come on V, you fancy her don’t you?”

With a deep sigh, Vanessa leans back in her chair and nods reluctantly, nearly falling out of her chair when Tracy squeals delightedly.

“Oh my god,” she squeaks before dropping her voice to a whisper, “I thought you couldn’t stand her!?””

Vanessa looks around, making sure that Charity isn’t nearby. “I couldn’t, at first. But I’ve seen a different side to her recently, and she’s said she likes me too…”

“Doesn’t look like it to me,” Tracy scoffs, watching Charity out of the corner of her eye.

Vanessa gives Tracy the abridged version of her last conversation with Charity and watches as her sisters eyes seem to bulge with pure glee and a ridiculously cheesy grin spreads across her face.

“So are you going to give her a chance?”

Exasperated, Vanessa shrugs. That is the exact question that she had spent almost the whole night lying awake and thinking about.

“I don’t know Trace, what about dad?”

“What about him?”

“You know… everything she did to him, or how about just the fact that it’d mean sharing women with dad…” Her voice is barely audible, so the people sat closest to them are surprised when Tracy howls with laughter in reply. Vanessa kicks her hard under the table and smiles apologetically at everyone. She catches Charity looking at them curiously too, and blushes when she winks and smiles.

Gasping for air, Tracy finally manages to calm herself down. “Seriously V, it’s got nothing to do with dad. Besides, he and Megan were just as much to blame for things if you think about it and we’ve forgiven them haven’t we? You’d be daft to turn her down because of all that.”

There’s a strange sort of comfort confiding in Tracy brings. The confusing and, quite frankly, exhausting mess of thoughts and feelings seem simpler when she says them out loud.

“It’s not like you have to fall in love with her or get married V, just have some fun, see where it goes, and at the very least, you’ll know whether you prefer women.”

It sounds so simple when Tracy says it.

Before Vanessa can work up the courage to go to the bar and speak to Charity however, Rhona waltzes into the pub looking stressed and joins them at their table with an exaggerated sigh. Her love life has been just as complicated as Vanessa’s as of late – torn between trying to win Paddy back from Chas and starting afresh with Pete. And of course, Vanessa hasn’t told her the truth of things with Charity, so whenever she’s around Rhona, the conversation usually revolves around her friend.

Tracy ends up leaving them to it and heading back home to David whilst Rhona cries on Vanessa’s shoulder for half an hour before suggesting they head back to hers to open a bottle of wine she still has from Christmas. Vanessa reluctantly agrees and looks for Charity to say goodbye, but there’s only Chas behind the bar and no sign of Charity.

*************

Charity is taking out the rubbish when she spots Vanessa and Rhona walking up to Smithy Cottage. Rhona looks a little worse for wear and is practically draped over Vanessa’s shoulder as they meander along Main Street. Vanessa’s arm is round Rhona’s waist and the pair look very… cosy.

She’d hoped that Vanessa might at least say goodbye before leaving, if not put Charity out of her misery either by dragging her into the cellar for a snog or letting her down gently. No such luck.

She doesn’t like being made to feel a mug and having put all of her cards on the table with Vanessa she’s feeling painfully exposed and vulnerable – feelings she normally makes a concerted effort to avoid. She watches the pair stumble into Smithy before depositing the last bag of rubbish into the bin and storming back inside.

Chas immediately picks up on her foul mood. Of course she does. Sometimes, she forgets that Chas used to be just as much of a fuck up as she was before she went and got all perfect. Being deliriously happy and in love with Paddy hadn’t made her much more bearable.

“What’s up with your face?” she asks, hands on hips and scowling slightly.

“Nothing,” Charity insists, pouring herself a whisky and knocking it back. She wasn’t about to tell Chas about how she’d been pining for the local closet lesbian vet and was making an absolute fool of herself in the process. She had to try and hold on to some dignity.

It’s only an hour later, when she’s clearing up the glasses from the outside tables that she sees Vanessa leaving Smithy cottage and heading home. Deciding that she’s been humiliated enough for one day, Charity quickly grabs the last few glasses and starts to make a mad dash back into the pub.

“Hold on Charity!” Vanessa calls. The sound of her rapidly approaching footsteps stop Charity in her tracks and taking a deep breath, she turns to meet her.

“What do you want?” she asks, exasperated and already steeling herself for rejection. A flash of confusion contorts Vanessa’s face momentarily before she seems to remember what it is she wanted to say. If she’s put off by Charity’s obvious defensiveness, it doesn’t show.

“Well, that is the question I’ve been trying to answer since you left yesterday…” she says, moving wind whipped strands of hair from her face and tucking them behind her ears. Her smile is easy and kind and Charity can feel herself softening under the other woman’s gaze. “And I can think of a dozen reasons why you and me would be a terrible idea,” she admits.

Charity flinches. Of course this was always going to be Vanessa’s response. She’s damaged goods – she knows that. Someone as pure as Vanessa couldn’t possibly want her. She bites down hard on her lip, and waits for the other shoe to drop.

“But,” Vanessa continues, “I can think of a few very good reasons why we should give it a try.”

Charity isn’t sure she’s heard Vanessa correctly. Reluctantly, she meets her gaze, brow furrowed.

“And what reasons are those?” she asks, “Just out of curiosity.”

The cold weather has already made Vanessa’s cheeks pink, but her blush seems to darken at Charity’s question and she smiles awkwardly in that dorky yet adorable way that Charity can’t seem to get enough of.

“Well, with just two and a half kisses, you’ve somehow managed to make me feel things that I’ve never felt before with any man… and I’d be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t ridiculously attracted to you.”

Charity’s eyes widen as she feels a tentative flicker of hope spark in her chest.

“So what are you saying exactly?”

Vanessa chuckles softly to herself. “I’m saying that I don’t know if I’m gay, straight or bi… but if you’re willing, I’d like to figure that out with you.”

It’s hardly heartfelt, and it’s not exactly a deceleration or love, but Charity’s pretty sure she’d have run as fast as possible in the opposite direction if that’s what Vanessa had opened with. Instead,

“I can’t make you any promises,” she mumbles, surprised when Vanessa scoffs.

“What makes you think I can?”

“So we’re agreed? We just see what happens? No strings?”

Vanessa nods, her bottom lip caught between her teeth anxiously. “No strings,” she agrees. “And you know, there’s nobody in at mine…”

Temporarily stunned by Vanessa’s forwardness, Charity barely registers the way Vanessa’s hands come up to slide along her jawline and into her hair, pulling her into a kiss that makes Charity weak.

“Do you want to come over after work?” Vanessa asks when she pulls back. Charity blinks, and looks back towards the Woolpack that she’d forgotten about entirely when Vanessa had propositioned her.

“I think Chas can manage on her own for a bit…” she husks, pulling Vanessa down the street towards Tug Ghyll.

*************

She doesn’t have time to panic or worry about how this will be her first time with a woman. No sooner does the door close behind them than Charity’s hands are pushing her against it. Her kisses are hot and messy and they drown out the pesky voices of doubt that scratch at the back of her mind.

Between kisses, they make their way upstairs, dropping items of clothes as they go. By the time Charity is pressing her into the mattress of her bed, they are wearing only underwear.

She can feel Charity everywhere, as if every part of her body is working in harmony beneath her diligent fingers. She gasps and arches when Charity discovers sensitive places she didn’t even know she had.

The first time she comes it’s hard and fast with Charity’s hand in her knickers and tongue in her mouth. It’s still the best orgasm she’s ever had, as though somehow every inch of her body is on fire.

Charity takes her time the second time around. She removes Vanessa underwear slowly, kissing her way down her leg to the insides of her ankles until she’s shivering with pleasure. She returns just as slowly, dragging her tongue through Vanessa’s wetness slowly and swirling it around each nipple before kissing her deeply. If Vanessa had the ability to form coherent thoughts, she’d be wondering how someone with Charity’s reputation could be so gentle and attentive.

“You taste amazing,” Charity husks, her breath hot against her ear as Vanessa’s hips rise to meet hers.

There’s no thinking involved. Her body moves against Charity’s as if this moment is the sum of billions of years of evolution – as though fish only ever learned to walk on land so that one day, Vanessa Woodfield could be fucked by Charity Dingle.

When she sinks her fingers into Charity for the first time, she feels like warm silk around her hand and it’s almost too overwhelming, how right and how good it feels to be the reason that Charity cries out her name. Her free hand anchors her and keeps her upright as Charity rocks back and forth in her lap, clutching at Vanessa’s shoulders and scalp with her fingers, seeking Vanessa’s lips with her own.

When she comes, they both fall backwards against the pillows panting.

At some point in the early hours, when they’re too exhausted to go on, Vanessa allows herself to marvel at this version of Charity that she hadn’t known existed. The Charity who lies with her head on Vanessa’s chest, arm circling Vanessa’s waist and leg hooked over Vanessa’s thigh. Vanessa had never known closeness like it after sex. Men had a tendency to roll over and fall asleep once they’d got what they wanted.

“I really thought you were going to tell me to get stuffed before,” Charity says, tracing the curve of Vanessa’s hip with her fingers.

“Why?”

“Because I always ruin things. It’s kind of my default setting to fuck up anything good in my life.”

There’s a heaviness to Charity’s words, the kind of weight that comes with history. Beneath all of the bravado and dry wit, there is a softness and an innocence that Vanessa had never noticed before.

“No,” she whispers, “you don’t.”

“No?”

“There is something good and beautiful in you, just like there is a part of me somewhere that is dark and dangerous, and the past does not get to decide the future, we are always changing. Always evolving.”

Charity is quiet for a moment and Vanessa holds her breath, afraid she has delved too deep too soon. After a moment, Charity’s arm winds tighter around her waist, holding her closer. The message is clear, even without words.

After a comfortable silence, during which Vanessa begins to think she’s fallen asleep, Charity unhooks herself from Vanessa and straddles her hips. When she leans down to kiss her, her hair falls around them like a veil between them and the rest of the world.

“I can’t believe you thought you were straight,” Charity murmurs between kisses and Vanessa can’t help but laugh. Charity’s attempt to lighten the moment is woefully transparent, but Vanessa lets it slide.

“Yeah, definitely not straight…” she says, squeezing Charity’s thighs.


End file.
